Salt

[swapperz]

This might be a stupid question, but bare with me. I know that i have to need to use sea salt for my BW tank, but can i use normal sea salt. Like the kind you would buy for your food? Not plain whithe grained salt. But the chunky kinda thing that comes from the sea? Because that ought to be the same as what they live in, in their natural habbitat. Or am i wrong?

[crazedpuffer]

You porbablly can, but it would be much more cost efficient to by the normal sea salt used for aquariums.

[Boxermom]

I'm not sure human sea salt has all of the minerals, buffers, and whatnot that marine salt for aquariums has.

[swapperz]

Around here the sea salt is really expensive, so we would actually pay less to buy kitchen sea salt.

But that is just the problem, because if there has been added something extra good stuff to the salt from our LFS then we will use that. But what we where thinking was that in nature they dont get those extra things. But I dont want to harm my fish either. So i was just wondering if anyone had tried it.

[Pufferpunk]

Your GSPs need marine salt, not table or sea salt.

[nmonks]

Non-iodised sea salt (i.e., rock salt) plus some sort of hardening agent (such as crushed coral in the filter) would probably create tolerable conditions for most brackish water fish. It wouldn't be ideal, but in the short term, it would work. By their very nature, brackish water fish are able to regulate precisely the balance of salts in their tissues.

Most edible salt is treated with iodine for health reasons and with various anti-caking chemicals to ensure free flowing salt when you pour. Iodised salt in particular is toxic to fish, or at least, it is said to be. I don't have anything to hand explaining how or why.

With all that said, nothing really beats having proper marine salt mix. Marine salt mix buffers the water as well as raises its salinity. You don't need a huge amount for the GSP. Providing you have hard (20 degrees dH), alkaline (pH 7.5-8.0) water, a juvenile GSP can be kept in freshwater with a low salinity (around SG 1.005) for a year or two without any problems. Even when mature, you only need an SG around 1.010, which is about 40% normal seawater salinity. Yes, many people keep them in marine aquaria, but many do not, including public aquaria.

Water QUALITY is rather more important with this species, and provided you kept the water nice and clean, I have no doubt at all that a specimen maintained at SG 1.010 would have a good long life.

Cheers, Neale

[crazedpuffer]

How much is the salt by you swapperz?

[swapperz]

The salt that i buy at my localfish store is 79 kr for 2 kg. Which is about 13,41 dollars for 2 kgs.
But now im actually all confused. The salt i buy at my lfs is red sea salt. Which is the wrong kind then? I just thought you ment sea salt when you said marine salt. Because i havent found anything by that name in denmark.

Could someone send me a link to the producer of the slat you use? Or just the name of the company name? Then i can read up on it and compare it.

[Hilly]

Just looked up red sea salt, supposed to be more natural than other sea salts. Other manufacturers like Tropic Marin and Kent and Instant Ocean make marine salt. The price seems about right, that in dollars is comparable toi how much marine salt costs in pounds in the UK.

[swapperz]

I've just googled some more and I found a page where the salt is a litllte bit cheaper. And it says on that page that Red Sea salt is gathered naturally. But is Red Sea salt the right thing to use? Im still confused by the sea salt/marine salt thing

Just like with the hydrometer. I asked for one in my LFS and she started talking about something for terrariums, because it is called something completly else here.

[Hilly]

From what I read, red sea salt is just a more naturally sourced version of marine salt that are available from other manufacturers.

Have a look online for a hydrometer if the LFS's aren't up on them or a refractometer, just make sure they do salinities from the bottom to the top. Some people have been got by that before when it doesnt start from 1.000

[swapperz]

0k ill do that. Thanks

[Pufferpunk]

You can always find one at Ebay.

[Nick]

Sea salt vs marine mix:
Good quality sea salt is dried out sea water. Has regular salt, epsom salt, calcium, and a bunch of other disolved trace elements. When dried out, a number of these components change form, and when water is added again, do not return to being what they were in the original sea water.
Marine mix is designed to replicate sea water after being added to fresh water. It has forms of the trace elements needed in sea water that will not redissolve or are changed in some way by drying out.

On table salt:
Neale - I think the reason there is no supporting literature showing the dangers of iodized table salt is because it's not really dangerous. I think this sprouts from confusion over the term "iodized." Iodized salt contains iodide, not pure iodine. Pure iodine will horribly kill fish. Iodide is an importance trace nutrient in fish as well as humans, in fact, lack of iodide is sometimes responsible for health problems in sharks, rays, and the northern puffer. Anti caking agents in salt are listed on the ingredients, and it's almost always just totally harmless silicone dioxide(sand powder) in the salt I buy. I'm currently treated my DP tank with iodized table salt because one of my DPs, Pig, has developed what seems to be an enlarged thyroid, which could be goiter, and just hoping it's not a tumor. Neither the DPs nor the amano shrimp in the tank have suffered any ill effects or behavioral changes despite several weeks of iodized table salt at ich therapy levels.

[nmonks]

Nick, thanks for the explanation. Jeni sent me a similar comment as well. All sounds reasonable enough.

So, I guess I can throw the 'iodised salt' nugget of wisdom into the same bucket of garbage as activated carbon, tonic salt for freshwater fish, and the value of "old" water!

Cheers, Neale